“You don’t say?” Tack asked and I bit back my giggle but Hop didn’t. His chuckle wasn’t audible but I felt his body move with it.
“I say, ass**le!” she snapped.
To this, Tack strangely responded, “Fifty thousand.”
Naomi’s body went still and, incidentally, so did mine.
“For each,” Tack finished.
What?
“A hundred,” she shot back and my body went solid as a rock.
Was she…?
Was she…?
Was she selling the custody of her children?
“Fifty, be happy for it. You know I’ll win in court,” Tack told her.
“I don’t know it,” she fired back.
“You know it,” he stated firmly. “Even if you don’t, you and that sorry man ‘a yours can’t afford to fight it.”
“Maybe I feel like puttin’ you through the hassle anyway,” she suggested nastily.
“Your call,” Tack said on a shrug then continued, “But that offer has an expiration. Five seconds.”
Her face paled, she looked quickly toward the office then back at Tack. “Can we talk alone?”
Oh. My. God.
She’d come here for this.
“Four seconds,” Tack said.
Her body jerked.
“Seventy-five,” she haggled.
Ohmigod!
She’d come here to haggle for her kids!
“Three seconds.”
“Sixty!” she snapped.
“Two seconds, Naomi.”
“Fuck you, Tack!”
“Right, one second.”
“Fine!” she clipped.
Tack crossed his arms on his chest. “Good. That’s outta the way, these are the terms. I have the papers drawn up. They’re delivered to you. You got twenty-four hours to sign them. That’s delayed even a minute, deal’s dead. You think of getting any bright ideas or that moron of a man you got does and you think to reopen negotiations, deal’s dead. Tab, Rush, Tyra, me or anyone connected with Chaos sees you or hears from you, deal’s dead. Once signed, the kids see you when and if they want to. They don’t, they don’t see you. You don’t call them or me or Tyra or anyone that has anything to do with Chaos or Ride. You do not show your face here, at my house, at Tyra’s, at the kids’ school, ever. Unless the kids instigate contact, you’re gone. Agreed?”
“When do I get the money?” she asked instantly and Tack stared at her, his face twisted in a way I’d never seen.
Revulsion.
“Jesus,” he muttered, “I had your gold on my finger for years.”
“When do I get my money?” Naomi repeated, her tone sharper.
“Not even Rush?” Tack asked what I thought was strangely before I got it.
She wasn’t even going to fight for her son and she supposedly loved him.
That got to her and I could tell because her face was now twisted too. But it was not revulsion. It was hurt and bitterness.
Apparently she needed the money more than her son. Her next words laid testimony to it.
“When do I get my money, ass**le?” Naomi shot back.
“When I get the signed papers,” Tack finally answered.
“Works for me,” she muttered, swung her glare to me then around the group at large before she stomped to her car.
Tack prowled to me.
Oh boy.
Hop let me go, Tack tagged my hand and then I was clicking across the tarmac to the Compound. Once there, Tack pulled me inside and around the bar where he stopped me, tore off his sunglasses, threw them on the bar and put his hands to my waist. Up I went and my ass was on the bar.
“Don’t move,” he growled and stalked off.
I didn’t move.
He came back with a huge-ass first aid kit the size of which I blocked out instantly because of what its existence said about its owners. He set it on the bar beside me, dug through it, found what he was looking for and ripped open the foil pack to an alcohol wipe. I then performed a miracle when, as gentle as he was, I didn’t gasp when the sting hit me when he started swiping one of my two scraped and bleeding knees.
Looking, I also had scraped and bleeding elbows.
Damn.
Well, that slap was worth it even if I hoped none of this left scars.
After Tack finished cleaning my first knee, he’d opened another alcohol wipe and started on the other one, I thought it safe to offer quietly, “We’ll sell my car and I’ll put my house on the market right away. Maybe we’ll get a quick sale. And I still have a little money set aside.”
He was bent to the side to see what he was doing.
At my words, his body didn’t move. Only his eyes shifted to lock on mine.
“Say again?”
“To get the one hundred K for the kids,” I explained.
He went back to my knee, stating, “Don’t need to do that shit. I got it.”
My head jerked. “You have a hundred K?”
He tossed the bloody wipe down on the bar and went back to the kit to get another one, saying, “Yep.”
“Really?”
“Elbow up,” he ordered, ripping open another wipe then after he started working on my elbow, he answered my question, “Yep. Really.”
“So my old man’s loaded,” I whispered and his eyes came to me.
“Yep.”
I felt my eyes get wide.
“I was joking,” I informed him.
“I’m not.”
Holy crap!
He tossed the alcohol wipe to the side then placed a hand in the bar on either side of me and leaned in.
“Chaos has a lot of members. All money earned is doled out equal. But, babe, you’ve accepted payments for our cars and bikes. Those f**kers cost a f**kin’ mint. The stores are all way in the black. The point of decades of buildin’ that shit was so my brothers wouldn’t take a hit when we pulled outta the other shit. They did but that don’t mean that hit was big. We all live easy.”
If he had a hundred grand to toss around, he must live easy.
“I think I need a raise,” I declared.
He blinked.
Then he smiled slowly and I enjoyed the show.
After it was done, he said quietly, “But thanks for the offer, darlin’.”
“You’re welcome, Kane.”
His brows went up. “You really tackle that bitch?”
“I have the battle scars to prove it,” I said by way of answer.
“Babe,” he muttered.
“She called me the c-word,” I offered in my defense.
That got me another smile.